Guild Wars 2

Sanderinoa.8065:

Who is joining our 5 mesmer team?!

I could always play the decorative dead mesmer on the floor . But if you want somebody playing on your level, you’d better look elsewhere (or come back in a few years, when I’ve had enough time to practice ).

I know, I need to find new friends … the ones I have still prefer their “trinity lite” playstyle with lots of ranging and cleric staff guardian and general chaos . But practicing in pugs is still better than not practicing at all … and actually half my pugs this weekend were really good and taught me a lot, just unfortunately TA wasn’t among the good pugs, or I was just being especially bad.

The funny thing is, I doubt I would’ve had much of a problem making that skip on mesmer or even on my ele (by far my most-played character but I don’t dare take her into dungeons outside of groups of old friends, since unfortunately I don’t know the first thing about properly stacking might or conjuring weapons or whatnot … that’s a future project once I feel comfortable with mesmer and ranger in dungeons ). There’s so much I still haven’t figured out about the ranger … but it gets a little less each day.

Maybe I’ll have more time next weekend to concentrate on the game. The last few days unfortunately were overshadowed by my “lovely little daughters” that got into a fight to the point where one broke the other one’s finger, so I was kind of “on call” for entertaining a bored 8-year-old who couldn’t go to the pool with her friends, and only got to do some (mostly) quick pug runs inbetween.

Kind of off-topic … I really should be working, not forum posting .

yerok.5469:

you need parties to farm for rarer drops, maybe obsidian shards or increased key drops or new items whatever

Restricting rare/better loot to endlevel grouping isn’t the core of what this game is about. The idea is that the whole game is your endgame, and you can do pretty much everything from walking around Metrica Province to kicking Subject Alpha out of the Crucible of Eternity to gain rewards that are useful and relevant at your level.

Right now this works very well. Whether I walk around enjoying the sights and farming copper nodes that I can upgrade to much-needed iron by investing a skillpoint I gained at said walk in the park … or province, or roam a high-level dungeon for high-tier materials, a healthy mix of content as much as guarantees that I’ll gather a healthy mix of rewards that for example allow me to forge the ascended sword my mesmer has an eye on.

Once you put better rewards behind a specific content wall (in this case above-level group areas), you will restrict their accessability to a large base of casual-oriented players and at the same time force all players into the same kind of content to gain comparable rewards. Right now you can play all kinds of content in this game and still be able to competitively gear your characters fairly easily. Once one specific kind of content will offer rewards considerably better than the rest, this game is no better than all the other loot treadmill games out there.

Thanks a lot for all the advice, that should help me get through there next time!

Iris, the main problem most likely is that I’m still learning my ranger and forget to use the easiest things . Like this time, I totally forgot to use the gs leap because I tried to clear those blossoms with bow and have off-hand horn on swap for swiftness. I also hadn’t traited signed of the beastmaster (I’m currently using this build) and thus didn’t think of using signet of the stone. Axe mainhand I probably last used around level 5, which was close to two years ago (the ranger was my very first character in game ), so totally forgot about that weapon.

The secondary problem in this case was that I was unable to juggle staying on my feet with the knockdowns and fears along the way (there was at least one, possibly even two groups with knights) and not getting poisoned to death by the blossoms (there are many on that path). I did craft my ranger a shiny new axe just a few days ago, I’ll make sure to put it to use next time I find myself in TA without a lawnmower guardian .

I got into a TA forward run today on my ranger that turned out to already be waiting at Leurent, expecting me to make the skip from the elite guards to Leurent all by myself. I’ve got to say I totally failed that one (several times even sigh).

Does anybody have any tips how a ranger can make it past that section alone? I tried equipping signet of the hunt (movement speed) and signet of renewal (condition removal), either longbow or shortbow to remove blossoms before they exploded into poison clouds, call of the wild for swiftness, and rampage as one for stability and swiftness, but never made it past all the groups on the way.

Congratulations Lilith!

I’m not fond of that kind of “scorebord”, because I’ve met too many people in different games that tend to change from playing for the best of the group’s interest to only playing for their personal numbers as soon as any kind of individual “score” can be seen.

As much as we all would like it, there is just no metric complete enough to give an accurate assessment of a person’s contribution to a group effort like an MMO dungeon run and at the same time easy enough so that people can gleam their or other party member’s “group worth”.

I took my ranger on some adventures in pug-land last night (sadly, it’s a lot easier for me to practice meleeing in pugs than with the friends I usually run dungeons with). There was a variety of weird encounters.

One path had a troll that kept everybody waiting, then started swearing at people that didn’t respond instantaneously, and eventually went out of his way to pull additional mobs onto the group mid-dungeon, which got him kicked in short order. Afterwards he started whispering people and threatening all kinds of things … welcome to my blocklist.

One path saw my ranger bite the dust at every single boss, not just downed, but outright defeated. It would have been really humiliating if the damage done to those bosses wouldn’t have instantaneously and obviously slowed to a crawl every time I went down. I guess there’s a first to everything, even to me playing the lead dps in a party .

All in all I’m really glad I decided to give my ranger a try as a dungeon class and get him the proper equipment for it. While I’m still far from good on ranger, and get downed way too often, I really enjoy the playstyle .

If any group on EU could use a charr (ranger), asura (mesmer or golem-obsessed warrior) or sylvari (ele or guardian, but not much dungeon experience on those two) feel free to message me. I’d love to try this.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

I also feel there should be an increased reward for those who go on a long streak of sucking less

But dying in this game is not closely related to your personal skill level. You easily die to an unlucky pull out of your control (e.g. respawn in the open world when you had no way of knowing that somebody else had just cleared out the spawns before you came along), other people pulling mobs onto you (if that thief next to you aggroes the mob you you kept away from to recover from the last fight, then stealths to drop aggro on you, you may never get a chance to recover sufficiently), simple network problems/lag, real life (e.g. kids) calling for your attention, lousy random rolls and so on.

The more harsh a death penalty is, the less fun it is to try things with uncertain outcome. I’ve gone from pvt geared characters (training wheels ) to full offensive gear, learning to survive without passive defenses along the way. It was fun and rewarding to see myself getting better and deaths get fewer, but it wouldn’t have been fun if dying to mistakes would’ve actually hindered me in improving by putting additional challenges in my path each time I don’t succeed.

If I knew the game was punishing me each time I missed a jump, misjudged a mob or just were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place (or near the wrong people) at the wrong time, and/or judge myself as just not good enough to reach the skill ceiling where the rewards were worthwhile again (due to time constraints, lousy reflexes, whatever), then the game wouldn’t challenge me to improve at all, but rather just take away challenge and reward, and make me slog around, playing things safe and feeling lousy if I still die due to reasons outside of my own influence.

Not dying is as much due to selfish gameplay and pure luck as it is to personal skill. You may say that selfish gameplay is in fact a personal skill, but it’s not the one I’d like to see superior in a multiplayer game. To me it’s all about cooperative play, but cooperative play will get you killed due to other player’s failures no matter how skilled you are yourself.

GameVeight.2745:

If you really want a penalty then do it yourself. Reroll on death, buy an Orichalcum Mining Pick and destroy it, salvage your armor when it breaks, nothing is stopping you.

rincewind.9528:

Why can’t we have a relaxed and fun game? Why everything must be hard and mean?

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the people promoting death penalties actually don’t want them for themselves but for the “less worthy” players around them. The mindset expressed in several of the posts in this thread talks about “forcing people to improve”, but I doubt the people actually consider themselves among those who have to seriously improve to not be hit hard by the penalties.

It may just be an unconcious reaction, but most (if not all) of the pro-death-penalty arguments I have seen in this post come down to “I want better rewards than the worthless casual over there who can’t even survive”.

Victros.8154:

OK, thanks for all the help! I’m afraid GW2 may not be for me. I’m pretty bad at dodging, historically.

I played this game for at least half a year (including a couple of characters to level 80) thinking myself totally incapable of dodging. Then, when the daily dodger achievement first came out, I finally started to take a look at what attacks are actually dodgeable, how to notice them, and how to react in time. I played around with my key bindings and options, and before I knew it, dodging had become second nature to me. But as long as you don’t plan to play high-end dungeon content, you can really get along fine without dodging, just by moving out of the way if you see anything nasty coming your way. Give it a try, the game is a ton of fun, and while dodging does make some things easier, you can very much enjoy the game without it.

pdavis.8031:

I’m having the same “issues” with my wife who recently started playing. The hardest part for her is the controls. I’ve read that rebinding q/e to a/d for strafing is extremely helpful, as she won’t be trying to turn and can use the mouse to change direction. Anyone have any experience with this?

I’m not sure if this counts as “experience”, but I remapped my keys the way you suggested pretty early in the game, since the turning keys would always make me mess up. I’m using the mouse for turning, w/s for moving ahead/backwars (v for dodge) and a/d for strafing, and since my finger’s rest positions are always a/s/d/f (relict of ages past when I learned to type 10-fingered ), it works a lot better than q and e.

I currently have the “teaching”-problem in a somewhat easier variation: My youngest daughter, who isn’t old enough to have her own account, is sometimes allowed to explore cities and jumping puzzles with my characters. Since it’s her first computer game, she’s having a hard time with the movement controls, too. Fortunately, as a kid, she learns much easier than an adult, but seeing how every family member is able to navigate MMOs so much easier than she is does make it difficult for her (and for us when she throws a tantrum each time the character doesn’t move the way she wants it to ).

The “strategy” that helps best in our case is actually “show her once, then let her practice someplace safe (preferably inside a city) by herself”. I suspect that this works the same with adults: Try not to “teach” too much, but only show the basics, then leave and let them practice by themselves at their own pace (her dad is always in the room when she plays, but he doesn’t “count” since he doesn’t play GW2 and thus can’t judge on her movement skills in her opinion ).

Stupid question: Why do you need to decide on a main?

Personally, I have given up the idea of having a single “main” and play (and equip) whatever class(es) I feel like at the time. Fortunately, decent equipment isn’t all that hard to come by in this game, and I’d rather have a pool of fun characters with exotic equipment fit for whatever game mode I enjoy with that class than just one that I am stuck with even if I don’t enjoy because it’s the one that has all the legendaries and such (ok, I’m not anywhere near getting a legendary anyway ).

That said, thanks to ascended and legendary equipment being account-bound, it actually isn’t all that difficult to outfit different classes either. For example, I have a full set of ascended berserker accessories with agony resist that I transfer to any character about to do some serious dungeoning/fractals, as well as several pieces of ascended light armour that are shared between ele and mesmer.

So my choice would be: all of them! There’s nothing that puts me off a game easier than the feeling that I have to play just one of my countless alts because the rest is just not “good enough”.

Azhure.1857:

The -15% penalty, per death, isn’t “harsh” or “severe” in my book. Its not taking anything from your inventory, its not resetting you in experience gained, and its not game breaking. It also can be countered afterwards by gaining more experience.

It is taking one of the most valuable things I have: My time.

If I am working on content I have not mastered yet, whether it is a dungeon path my group hasn’t fully figured out, a solo-challenge like Liadri, or an Orr temple event where a sizable part of the participants doesn’t fully understand the event mechanics, if I fail (and die/wipe), I want to use what little time I have for playing to try again with an adjusted strategy.

Stat-penalties that I either have to wait or do other content (gain experience) to remove only serve to keep me from trying again with the best I can bring, and force me to spend my precious playtime on other things than the boss/event/whatever I had wanted to work on.

If the game penalizes me for trying challenging content in a way that seriously hinders my ability to keep trying, that content (and most likely that game) isn’t something I want to play. I love this game because it allows me to choose what part of it I want to play, instead of randomly restricting me from content just because I was unlucky, didn’t know the boss/event inside-out yet, or worst of all had an unlucky disconnect or family aggro at the wrong moment.

So I did fractals level 34 with my regular fractal group last night, and got told off by our (wvw-)warrior for using one-handed swords in close quarters instead of the proper mesmer weapon greatsword sigh.

Is there any group on EU willing to adopt a moderately lousy mesmer (or ranger, or possibly even ele or guard) eager to learn and improve in the art of dungeon running? I guess I’m pretty good at picking up the theories, but slow at putting it into practice, so might require some patience .

It’s a sad day when you realize that you’ve outgrown your friends that taught you all the basics of dungeon running …

Thank you all! I had a lot of fun (even though I felt like the total noob that I am most of the time). I guess I still have a lot of practicing to do .

Reminds me of the Barbie dolls my daughters adore …

Sounds like it’s a good thing we still have 10 weeks to go before we reach 43 . It’ll be interesting to see if we even get that far … the 33 we did this week already showed a few key weaknesses in our group (most of all not enough damage output imo), and I’m not quite sure how that will develop.

stares out of the office window, wishing that the afternoon was over already

Have fun everyone, and Lilith, bring us some of winterchillz’ cake for tonight .

So what is the 2nd best instability?

Seriously, we did lvl 33 this week (ascalon, cliffside, grawl, molten duo) and it was the first time I came out of fractals and was like “never ever ever am I going through that again”.

Were we just being bad and inexperienced (we’ve been playing together since before reward level 30, and are hoping to keep going through the levels one by one, so we were all “on-level” for this one), or is 33 as nasty as it felt?

I’d love to come, and had actually planned to, but unfortunately my boss ordered overtime today (for the first time in weeks sigh), so I probably won’t be home before 4 this afternoon (10 a.m. Lilith time) .

8:30 Lilith time should be a little less than 5 hours from now if I’m not mistaken.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Why golemancer runes? :|

Because I have no real interest in outfitting him, since warrior is the one class that I’m absolutely lousy on and have no interest in playing “seriously”. He’s great for rp and any weird funny action, and golemancer runes just fit his personal interests (he’s a rather nerdy kind of guy that is a golem collector and more interested in golems than any living being ).

My little warrior is still haunting the Crucible of Eternity on his quest to complete his golemancer wisdom (5 runes down, one to go ).

Head: Reading Glasses
Shoulders: Pit Fighter Shoulderguard
Chest: Inquest Breastplate
Hands: Banded Gauntlets
Legs: Vigil’s Honor Tassets
Feet: Barbaric Boots

Back: Plush Quaggan Backpack (I tried to talk him into changing to something more grown-up, but he refused to let go of his plush quaggan )
Weapons: Glyphic

Dyes: White, Burnished Steel, Matte, Blue Tint, Aqua Tint, Winter Sky

First! There’s a lot of detail catching your eye on the other armor pieces already, adding the detail of the 2nd chestpiece is a bit too much for my eyes .

The relevant information for leveling experience on the wiki page is (in my opinion) the following sentence:

Experience gains are based upon percentages of the amount of experience to level.

So while you do need more experience to go from level 61 to 62, it will take just as many lvl 61 events as it would take lvl 51 events to go from level 51 to 52. Or, if you are leveling by exploration, you will gain a level after exploring a number of waypoints, pois, vistas and skill challenges, and this number won’t change no matter what level (after 15) you are on.

Personally, I enjoy leveling by exploration the most. Just run around exploring areas as close to your actual level as possible (since experience gain from events and mobs is based on the area level), and participate in all events you come across, and you will level up in no time at all. Don’t forget to harvest any wood, ore and plant you come across, too, since those will also give experience and resources can always be sold on the trading post for a bit of extra income.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I guess I’m just wondering how a cof p1 could ever fail at this stage in the game.

I don’t pug a lot, but I did a CoF p1 recently that would probably fit your description of “fail” on all levels. It actually started out as an lfg for story mode, but someone then went ahead and opened explorable instead, and since I was in no hurry that day I went along with it. It was a totally non-communication group, and it was painfully obvious that at least one player had never set foot in that dungeon before. There were actually a couple of wipes along the way, but at least nobody started to tell people off or throw around blame.

Fortunately, pugs this bad have been in the minority for me. Most pugs I join in fact go really smooth (but then I never join anything requiring zerker gear or experience, even though I could probably fit their requirements by now). The few I have encountered to stick out though among the many smooth runs, like my very first AC pug (path 3) with a bunch of low levels that insisted on stacking (I had no knowledge of the usual stacking and skipping strategies back then … in fact, that run was among the reasons that made me take a closer look at the dungeon forum in the first place ).

I can even say that most pug runs I join are smoother than many dungeon adventures I’ve had with my (former) guildies . But to be honest, that doesn’t say much about the quality of pugs …

Could I change to a spot on the late rather than the early fractal? I just found out I’ll have to work overtime on Friday and won’t be home in time for the early fractal .

No thanks.

Nobody is keeping you from running dungeons without stacking and skipping. In fact, some of the fastest and easiest dungeon runs I have had were with pug groups that advertised on lfg as no stacking/skipping. Try it, and you will find that it’s really no longer (and considerably easier) than unorganized pugs trying to stack and skip. Organized groups are different of course, but why would you try to be part of an organized speedrunning group if you don’t enjoy their playstyle?

You need more than 20 dungeon runs to gather enough tokens for a complete set of dungeon armour for one character, plus 3-5 runs for each weapon. If you restrict dungeon loot to once a week, you will no longer be able to work towards your dungeon equipment at your own leisure, but will be forced to gather tokens over an insanely amount of time (roughly half a year with weapons). Getting equipment from the same dungeon for more than one character is no longer an option that way.

Besides, even if prices would go down (which I doubt), people would earn less gold, too, and no more be able to afford things, so it’s a non-issue.

Seriously, if you want tanks and healers, there are tons of games out there for you. This one excells in that it doesn’t pigeon-hole people into being a one-trick-pony (this one takes the hits, that one does damage, and the weak one in the back is responsible for keeping everyone standing). Personally, I enjoy this game so much because it challenges me to be a bit of everything, having to do damage as well as looking after crowd controls, damage reduction/avoidance and a bit of healing, and synergizing with my group for maximum effect.

Actually, different “roles” still work with most content. Again, get your own group if that is the kind of game you enjoy. There are many valid combinations of equipment to get things done in this game. Just don’t force a specific set of combat roles on everyone, but let others do their own distribution of roles. Form a trinity-like group or a berserker group, whatever you enjoy most, it’s all possible in this game.

I’ll try to talk the family into giving me the afternoon off so I can be there for the early one .

If you are interested in the whole story and not totally against dungeons, you may want to consider doing all the dungeon story modes in order, starting with Ascalon Catacombs. There is a story line parallel to your personal story in these that also ends in the Arah story mode instance. Remember the mails from your Herald you got every ten levels or so about the members of Destiny’s Edge (Zojja, Rytlock, Caithe, Eir and Logan)? Those are the hints to that story line.

Post an lfg for the dungeon story mode you want to do, stating that it is your first time and you want to see the whole story with cutscenes. There are many experienced people around who like to re-play the story modes for the story’s sake and don’t care about rushing, and there’s a good chance you will get one or more of those in your party, helping you to get through.

Playing through all the story lines also gives you a chance to learn about the dungeons in this game (generally most if not all story line dungeons are easier than their explorable counterparts).

CalamityO.2890:

I sometimes pug and ask the same thing, “is this their first time”. And like you said, it’s normally not answered straight away.

I have to admit I often don’t know how to answer this kind of question. I’ve done a ton of dungeons with my friends / ex-guildies, finished every dungeon path at least twice, and have a solid understanding of most paths and their mechanics. But since the people I mostly have run with so far hardly ever skip or stack and range most bosses (successfully, with a colourful mix of builds and equipment), I have next to no knowledge of pug tactics. Am I “new” to the dungeon by your definition or not?

VideoGamermike.5813:

Learn what your words mean before you use them

Abominations

Enaretos.8079:

AFAIK you get them from <10 too.

You do. I’ve got five already on this account, and barely made it to reward level 6 .

Thanks all for the tips! I’ve read them all and will try to put them into practice .

I’ve read this thread, I have a ranger equiped with berserker gear, mainhand sword, researched builds to find a trait setup for dungeons … but I still can’t play him decently. Is there any resource around that explains how to use your utilities and weapon skills? Do I switch between guard and avoid combat for the pet depending on the kind of combat (boss vs. unavoidable trash/skips)? Do I cast the frost spirit whenever it’s off cooldown and the group is stacked, or save it for boss fights? How do I handle my weapon skills? Turn off auto attack and only use sword 1 manually?

It doesn’t help that I’ve only got a very sketchy idea of the current skips and when to dodge in a stack either … I’ve done a ton of dungeon runs, but probably 95% with my former guild of casual ranged players and support characters, so while I can’t say I’m new to dungeons, I certainly am new to “efficient” dungeon running and feel like I don’t learn anything in pugs but only make a fool out of myself by messing up all those things I don’t know sigh

I would in a blink, but unfortunately my accounts are both on EU .

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Rasimir.6239:

Got home a bit late (stupid subway was late again sigh), so the best I could come up with in the short time is my own ranger, at a posh garden party someplace in Kryta .

Love the tophat. You win. lol

Thank you so much! I never expected this, since I usually suck at taking pictures . But I’m glad you like his hat (and he’s glad that I’ve finally put him in an outfit that I am content with … I’ve had the hardest time coming up with something decent to wear for that poor Charr).

Got home a bit late (stupid subway was late again sigh), so the best I could come up with in the short time is my own ranger, at a posh garden party someplace in Kryta .

This is it, I’m going home early … should be home in an hour, that leaves another hour to take screenshots . (it also means I’ll have to work overtime one of these days, but that can’t be avoided I guess )

They will be available once you reach level 30.

The only way to “remove” a transmutation is to transmute the item’s original look (which you will find in your wardrobe) on top of what’s on there now, or aquire an identical, non-transmuted piece of armor and equip that instead.

Just keep on playing the parts of the game that you enjoy, and one day you’ll find that the gold has piled up and you are able to buy some things you thought unreachable before .

I started playing about three months after launch, and for the longest time I felt poor and was unable to afford stuff (like exotic equipment) that every ordinary player around me seemed to buy with their spare change. But I slowly learned more about the game and how to handle my characters, survive in high-level areas and events, do dungeons and fractals and enjoy WvW, and the gold (and other currencies) did start to accumulate.

I don’t think I started seriously thinking about exotic armor before I had played the game for half a year, if not more. I just didn’t have the resources, and since I hate to farm anything and try to spend my free time (what little of it there is) with things I enjoy, I found that yellows were much more affordable and adequate for what I enjoyed in this game (world exploration, events, casual dungeons with guildies).

Try to take your time. You can’t really go wrong with anything you are doing in this game, pretty much every activity will help you gather equipment, materials and currencies, and eventually you will have aquired enough to improve your equipment piece by piece. Contrary to popular belief (in part due to other MMOs where you do need specific equipment to participate in a large part of the “endgame”) there is (almost) no content in this game inaccessible if you are not equipped fully exotic/ascended.

Learn your class(es) and the abilities you have, how to use your weapons and skills to maximum efficiency, and how the game works in general. That knowledge will be much more helpful to you than getting the most expensive equipment right from the start. Eventually you will want better equipment of course, but once you have aquired skill and knowledge, the gold will come naturally, and you will be able to upgrade to whatever equipment you desire.

The transmutation is bound to the piece of equipment, not to the equipment slot. Just equip an armor piece with a different skin, and your character will wear the new skin (until you transmute that piece or equip something else again).

DaliIndica.9041:

If your a high level char with low level gear (which is what you will mostly find in low level areas) you will be doing less damage so it will be slower.

On the other hand, on-level gear for levels below 80 can be bought on the trading post for a few silver tops, and gets stronger on higher levels (3-stat armor vs. 1- or 2-stat). Add to that the wider range of available utility skills and boosts from traits, you actually are quite a bit stronger during the later levels than during the earlier ones, making the clearing of the same zone considerably easier and faster.

But then, I really enjoy doing even the starter zones again and again .

cries an Asura contest … and it started just after I had gone to bed cries some more

Why, oh why do I have to get up at 5 in the morning? I always miss out on the best things . Great job on all the Asura, and congratulations to Hamfast for finding the cutest!

DaliIndica.9041:

Do you have enough tomes to level to 80? or just some to give it a boost. If its the latter, I would save them to the end of the leveling. As in, if you have say 40 of them, get your char to 40 first them use the tomes, its quicker than pushing it to 40 then leveling the rest of the way. ALthough do as you please, I dont think it will be much in it in terms of speed wise.

It actually doesn’t make any difference. After level 15, you need the exact same amount of experience for each level, and you get the exact same amount of experience for exploring, harvesting etc. too. Using the scrolls early on (e.g. on level 20) does open up the areas you are free to explore, but even without that there are enough starting areas to explore to keep you busy for quite a few levels.

To the initial question: Try playing both classes for a while, either by exploration, WvW or sPvP, to determine which class suits you, then use your scrolls afterwards on the one you find more fun. Both classes have their strong and weak points, and it really is a question of personal preference that nobody else can answer for you.

Be aware that close to mid range combat and greatsword don’t mesh well on mesmer. Greatsword auto attack does considerably less damage, the closer you are to your target.

If you do want to stay in that range, consider going sword-pistol or sword-focus for your second weapon set. Between the evade on sword 2, the block on sword 4, the daze on pistol 5 and F3 and the distortion on F4 you have a lot of options to control enemies and incoming damage on a pure mainhand-sword mesmer and do a lot more damage.

The only time my mesmers regularly switch to greatsword is in large group/zerg content like boss events in the open world. Most other situations don’t usually allow me to stay at max range, thus making greatsword the inferior option for damage dealing.

As for equipment, I’ve ended up going full damage (power – precision – ferocity) for pve content, but adding a bit of toughness until you feel comfortable with your defensive abilities (evades, dazes etc.) can’t hurt.

Thanks for the tip, Taku, I’ll try it next time I’m in that fight.